South Korean battery maker LG Energy Solutions said on Tuesday that it would jointly invest $2.1 billion with General Motors to build an electric vehicle battery factory in the United States.
According to a regulatory filing filed by LG Chemical, the parent company of LG Energy Solutions, LG Energy Solutions and General Motors are expected to contribute 50-50 through their joint venture in the United States, Ultium Cells, which will be the third joint venture battery plant between the two companies in the United States.
The document shows that investment will be carried out in batches by 2026. Prior to the official announcement, LG Energy Solutions declined to provide details such as location and scale. The two companies are expected to announce details of the investment soon.
LG energy solutions account for more than 20 per cent of the global electric vehicle battery market and provide batteries for companies such as Tesla, Volkswagen and Hyundai.
The company has set up two plants with GM in Ohio and Tennessee to produce 70GWh batteries, which are expected to power about 1 million electric vehicles by 2024.
LG Energy Solutions has production facilities in the United States, China, South Korea, Poland and Indonesia. The company will go public later this week after it recorded the largest IPO, ever recorded in South Korea.
The IPO valuation of LG's energy solution is about 70.2 trillion won (US $58.57 billion), making it the third largest company in South Korea by market capitalization, after Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix.
However, some analysts believe that the valuation of LG energy solutions still looks low, after all, the company's market share is close to that of the Ningde era, which ranks first in the world. The Chinese company was recently valued at $213 billion.
